Jim Kor doesn't like to hang around people.

Yet this engineer is out to change the world. His Urbee is a special hybrid car. It mostly runs on electricity. But it can also run on fuel made from corn. It is plastic and is made using an advanced 3-D printer.

The Urbee can also zip across the entire country on 10 gallons of fuel. That's less than what it would take a minivan to get from Boston to New York.

"We want to make the greenest car on Earth," said Kor. He designs huge numbers of tractors and city buses. A Plastic Car Inspired By Nature

Kor took the idea for his new car from nature. The Urbee needed to be light and strong like a falcon and fast like a cheetah. But making this happen took a special 3-D printing technology. It was strong and fast, but didn't weigh very much.

By late 2011, Kor and his team had designed their dream. They built the car's body in a 3-D printing factory in Eden Prairie, Minnesota

Computers read the design software and "printed" each car part piece by piece. A plastic bumper was born. Then a hood, and other parts. Even though 3-D printing has been used to make gears, grilles and tools by other car makers, it had never been used to build the entire body of a car.

"It became the first car to have its body 3-D-printed and now it's the greenest practical car ever made. The Urbee uses eight times less energy than the average little car," Kor said. Urbee's Parts Are Quick To Print

It usually takes years to create a model for a new car. You have to change designs, tools, and materials for any little adjustment you want to make. With 3-D printing, designers can change details on a computer and click the Print button.

Once printed, the Urbee car parts were shipped and assembled back in Kor's lab. They were given two electric motors and a small ethanol engine. Today, the two-seater, three-wheeled Urbee is on tour. It's in England this month. Science and car lovers are going ga-ga over the vehicle.

"One day all cars will look like this... I'd like to license two-and-a-half billion Urbees," Kor said with a laugh. The goal is to sell each Urbee for about $16,000. Kor says we need an environment-friendly car like this. But he says it has to be low-priced and affordable.

During a 3D printing conference last month, Kor said he has already designed the Urbee 2. The version of the Urbee can drive 70 miles on a gallon of fuel. The Urbee 2 will get 120 to 290 miles per gallon. Just The Beginning For 3-D Printing

But Kor first needs $3 million to make the drawings real. Fundraising started Oct. 30. If successful, production will begin in 2014 at Stratasys' RedEye 3-D printing factory in Eden Prairie. A cross-country drive from New York to San Francisco is scheduled for 2015. On board will be Kor, his son and dog.

"We'll start with a half-scale model car in 2014. Once we have that tested, we are only a month away from making the full-scale model," Kor said. Because all the designs are in the computer, it doesn't take long to scale up.

The Urbee is one of the things to come out of of the 3-D printing revolution. Twenty years ago, 3-D plastic "printing" was a garage hobby. Now it's a $2.2 billion business. General Electric, General Motors, UPS and others use it every day.